


Blue Flame

by alachat



Series: It's a small, small world [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Multi, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alachat/pseuds/alachat
Summary: The pinch server of the Argentinian club CA San Juan had a Japanese name.In November, Atsumu got burned and (metaphorically) danced with Oikawa Tooru.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu & Oikawa Tooru, Miya Atsumu/Oikawa Tooru
Series: It's a small, small world [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844419
Comments: 24
Kudos: 207
Collections: One shots





	Blue Flame

It was November, and the Qatari sun burned gold and orange and red onto Atsumu’s skin.

He minded a whole lot, could already feel his head reverberate with raucous guffaws and his heart weighed down by Kita- _san_ ’s sigh. “What idiot would get burned in winter,” jibed a voice in his mind that sounded just like his, but he knew was not his. He wanted to defend himself, that it wasn’t winter yet, that this was Doha, all hot desert and blistering sun. But in the end, he just blinked away the sounds before they made him want more.

It was Atsumu’s first club world championship, MSBY didn’t make it past the round-robin, and he didn’t make it to the court. In the warm-up area he had seen sets he could have made and service aces he could have chased. He could have sweated and ached so that when they lost, he could have cried. Defeats lived second-hand only left him tearless and bitter. So here Atsumu was, roaming Doha all morning with his teammates on a hot November day, cranky beyond imagination. Bokuto had stifled a laugh and patted his back sympathetically. Inunaki-kun had laughed at him unrestrainedly before lending him a bottle of after-sun lotion. Their flight back home was scheduled for tomorrow, so they still had half a day to enjoy this luxurious oasis. Like addicts they returned to the Sports Hall in the Aspire Dome right after lunch.

Like addicts they returned to the Sports Hall in the Aspire Dome right after lunch.

———

The pinch server of the Argentinian club CA San Juan had a Japanese name.

Sitting a little too far back, all Atsumu could see was brown hair and blue uniform. He seemed to fit in, judging from all the hearty high-fives and pats on backs. Ball in right hand, he walked five steps away from the end-line. 3 seconds after the whistle, he made the toss and jumped. The sound made when his balm struck the ball rumbled and knocked the air out of Atsumu’s windpipes.

The opponent’s libero successfully kept the cannon-grade serve in the air. Their setter went for a five, and their bulky hitter smacked it down. CA San Juan’s setter managed to get the ball up high, but their team now lacked the control tower. While Atsumu was still deciding his hypothetical plan of attack, the pinch server ran up the court and jumped towards the ball.

In a span of a minute, CA San Juan’s pinch server had taken his breath away twice. His set was good, great, perfect. The opposite hitter finished it off with a boom, relishing the play as if it hadn’t been an emergency set, as if it had been his favourite set from a setter he had known since childhood.

The ball slammed down onto the other side of the court. The crowd stood up to roar. Atsumu sat transfixed.

“Fuck, that was cool,” was his first thought.

“I can beat him,” was his second. 

———

CA San Juan didn’t win.

Atsumu filed out of the hall into the wide street with his teammates.

His skin still burned red under the Qatari setting sun, but in his mind the Japanese pinch server standing tall in the wake of defeat burned blue.

———

The ramen shop near his hotel was busy.

Atsumu was alone, because “who eats ramen for his last meal in a foreign country,” said Inunaki- _kun_ and the Osamu in his mind. He huffed at them both.

The ramen shop near his hotel was so busy that he had to share a table. He didn’t mind much, so intent on his quest for a little taste of comfort. He ordered a bowl of _tonkotsu_ ramen then sat down in front of a man with brown hair, a blue windbreaker, and a face identical to the lone Asian man in the CA San Juan club photo he had looked up.

Before he could stop staring, CA San Juan’s pinch server and second-string setter greeted him first:

“Miya Atsumu.”

“Oikawa Tooru. You speak Japanese?”

“I only moved to Argentina after high school.”

“You know me?”

“I have watched your matches.”

Now that was something he didn’t expect. “From V.League?”

“And before that. Interhighs and the Spring Tournaments.”

“Why didn’t I see you there? Ever?”

“I never made it.”

His steaming bowls of home right before home arrived. For a while, they ate in silence. Atsumu thought back to countless hours of qualifying matches of the high school circuit he once watched, trying to place a head of brown hair.

“Why not? Your hitters were bad?”

“My hitters were excellent, thank you for your comment,” Oikawa said with a smile dripping with pique.

“Then why not?”

“I wasn’t good enough,” Oikawa bit into a slice of meat.

It was Atsumu’s turn to get vexed. “No. You are great. You must have been good. If your hitters couldn’t rise to your sets, it was on them.”

“If I couldn’t make my hitters rise to my sets, it was on me.”

Oikawa slammed his chopsticks down loud enough to startle strangers. He took a quick swallow of his ice-cold drink, then another to douse the fire in his eyes, the fire that Atsumu wanted to chase, to fight, even if it could turn him to ash.

“You remind me of my _kouhai_ ,” he picked up the chopsticks a beat later.

“Your _kouhai_?”

“Kageyama Tobio. You have faced him many times.”

“That explained the serve,” Atsumu said out loud.

“He learned that from me,” Oikawa couldn’t decide if he wanted to scowl or to smirk.

“You’re from Miyagi too then?” Like the freak combo and Ushiwaka and the giant playing for the Warriors and the over-achieving college guy that the Falcons were scouting.

“Yeah. Miyagi players have wiped the court with your face many times before.”

“They haven’t,” Atsumu let the fire singe his mind for a second. “You haven’t.”

“Technically, we did in the first round.”

“No, neither of us were on the court then.”

Halfway through Oikawa’s second bowl of _shoyu_ ramen Atsumu realised that they were dancing. Face to face but slightly off-centre, they were doing one of those dances his mum used to watch on television, with men in black tails and women in puffy skirts holding one another, hands on backs, hands on shoulders, hands in hands in a sea of strangers.

They moved to the same beat, at the same speed, towards the same place. But if he glided forwards, Oikawa stepped backwards; when he stepped out, Oikawa crossed his feet. And when they finally faced the same direction, he took the next step with his right leg, and Oikawa, predictably, with his left.

“I have set to Shouyou before.”

“Hinata Shouyou? Where? When?”

“Late summer, on a beach in Brazil.”

“A beach?”

When he stepped to the side, Oikawa stepped forwards.

“Don’t you want to join foreign leagues?”

“Not yet. My brother just opened his restaurant.”

When he pivoted on his toes, Oikawa stepped around.

———

Three days after Doha, red patches faded from Atsumu's skin, but in him a scorching blue flame stayed.

Five years after Doha, he wears red proudly. On the other side of the court, Oikawa in blue blazes bright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> This fic grew from my mad idea to write a series of "Oikawa x Everyone he doesn't have any canon interactions with" (pre chapter 402) as an attempt to cope with chapter 402. 
> 
> If there's a character I love slightly more than the rest of the cast in Haikyu!!, it's Oikawa. 
> 
> I'm mostly (forever) on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alachat_). Or [CC](https://curiouscat.me/alachat_)


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